The story so far

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One of the most infuriating quandaries that stems from the fresh, insatiable desire of a fitness bug is the sudden, back-down-to-Earth realisation that your long-standing niggles and aches haven’t miraculously disappeared overnight, oh no. They always come back with a vengeance.

Being prepared for this eventuality, however, will leave you in good stead for the future.

I’ve talked before about the importance of looking after your body and nursing yourself through the trials and tribulations of essentially being married to the physio table, and heaven knows my track record with injuries is almost as abysmal as my track record for embracing preventative measures, but alas, the older I get, the more I begin to take heed and actually do something about it. Taking my own advice has seldom ever been my strongest suit.

So with the introduction of this new training buzz I have to be increasingly realistic in my short and long-term expectations and how I can incorporate a wider variety of exercises into my schedule to ensure a stronger range of mobility.

Let’s take a recap on how my week has gone so far:

Sunday

Golf day. Reasonable weather and a new course to pry apart, we sank our teeth firmly into the 12 holes of South Petersfield. Plenty of walking, casual exercising and a nice relax after the tiresome session on Saturday.

Monday

So this is where the fun begins. I picked a little mini-cardio session for this morning’s routine as I only really get 30-40 minutes in the gym at work before I plunge into my sedentary hell. Here’s a run down of the session, formatted to save reading space:

I think the only changes to this slightly were that I only did 30/35 Press-ups originally but made up for it with 5 extra Star Jumps somewhere along the way. I also did 16/15 Jump Lunges because I’m forever OCD about each side being even.

Tuesday

Case in point today as I really wanted to work on my mobility in my legs. For as long as my memory serves I have had numerous ailments pertaining to my knees and I’ve never exercised or stretched them enough since I quit my wannabe hurdling career as a teenage athlete. Truth is, I didn’t look after them then either but that’s neither here nor there anymore.

While this morning’s session didn’t particularly have any true structure, I spent most of it doing exercises allied to the movement in the knee joint. In particular, this included:

Honestly, this is possibly the least exciting session I’d ever done. There was no urgency about it, no PB-hunting, no burning craving for a sore session. I did the very basics to keep my fragile knees for shattering. And sure, I’m a little sore in the groin this evening, but the sole aim was not to push myself to my limits – more simply, to allow me the opportunity to do so in the future.

Only time will tell whether it’ll have an actual impact, and the intentions are strong for me to pick up more Yoga-related activities, but for now it felt nice to get up early, hit the gym for some light work and not feel like a zombie for the entirety of the working day.

Injuries will catch up with me one day. But I’ll continue to fight them off for as long as possible – it’s just this time, I’ve upgraded my arsenal.

p.s. Spoiler alert; that’s not me in the featured photo. I cut my hair short again, you see.